Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-12-Speech-2-072"
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"en.20050412.8.2-072"2
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, malaria remains a disease closely associated with poverty. Every year, more than a million people die after contracting it, most of them children below the age of five. Malaria is therefore still the main cause of infant mortality in Africa. The disease affects mainly Africa, although other continents are also affected.
The fight against malaria continues to be under-funded, even though the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to which the European Union is the main contributor, has made more resources available to the countries concerned in the last few years. Despite these efforts at world level and despite the efforts made by the countries of the South, the annual shortfall in resources at world level will probably reach USD 2.6 billion in 2007. Given that the countries most seriously affected by this disease are also among the poorest, most of the necessary resources will have to come from external partners, if the countries concerned are to be able to fight malaria and achieve the sixth Millennium Development Goal. The European Union must therefore increase its contribution through bilateral programmes and through the Global Fund.
We do nevertheless have effective instruments for fighting malaria. In 2001, the Commission formulated a policy and an action programme to fight the three main diseases of poverty, that is HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. In 2004, the Commission presented a review of its work, showing, among other things, that it had increased its financial contribution to the fight against these diseases four fold. This contribution includes in particular an increased allocation to research. The Commission’s annual contribution to the Global Fund is EUR 259 million for the period 2003-2006. This will enable it to support programmes proposed by the countries concerned for the production of mosquito nets impregnated with insecticide that is effective long term and the production of medicines. The Commission has also adopted a new policy framework for continuing the fight against these diseases beyond 2007. That policy will be implemented in cooperation with the Member States of the European Union, with multilateral partners like the World Health Organisation, the ‘Roll Back Malaria’ programme, and with the countries of the South, including the African Union, civil society and the private sector.
The main activities will remain essentially the same. A strong emphasis on prevention, in particular mosquito nets impregnated with long-term insecticide and the introduction of new anti-malarial drugs such as artemisinin-based combination therapies in countries where there is resistance to existing drugs.
The Commission will also continue to invest in research and development of preventive vaccines, diagnostic tools and new curative drugs. If the efforts to develop new tools and drugs are to allow those that need them to have access to them on an equitable basis, the social sectors, health in particular, will obviously have to be strengthened with greater investment and more human resources in the health services."@en1
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